Mom-Brain gets a bad reputation—we’ve all experienced it: the fog, the stupor, the yearning for more than Sesame Street-level learning! Here at Momivate, we believe in your Mom-Brain—that motherhood can actually cause you to spark new dendrites by the second, as you look for ways to solve the many mysteries and conundrums inherent in raising children! Here are some ways to set Intellectual goals (that’s the ‘I’ in our S.P.I.C.E.S. acronym) and feed your brain!
Intellectual
Long car trips and your kids are itty-bitties? Listen to an audio book or podcast on a subject you want to learn about.
Learn along with your children at science museums! The hands-on displays aren’t always for little hands. And your enthusiasm for the exhibits will be contagious — your children will soon catch on that learning is exciting, not a chore!
Take an online class. There are many free classes, it will be a great example for your kids to see you taking time to learn, and they can sit on your lap, sit next to you while you are learning, and you can even teach them what you are learning.
See https://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses
Do you have a friend with children with a skill you want to learn, and she wants to learn something you can do? Sounds like an excellent skills-swap playdate!
If you don’t know how to play an instrument, think outside the box here, I’m not talking about an instrument that you find in an orchestra, or that you must master. Be average on an unusual instrument! The power is in the practice! Learning to play an instrument, “may be one of the best ways to help keep the brain healthy. ‘It engages every major part of the entire nervous system,’ said John Dani, PhD, chair of Neuroscience at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine.” (Penn Medicine News, pennmedicine.org/news).
Consider:
Steel Tongue Drum
Musical Spoons
Wish Well Tibetan Singing Bowl
Gecko Travel Cajon
Deekec Zelda Ocarina
Newlam Kalima Thumb Piano
LP Vibra-Slap
Learn a vocabulary word each day about a subject you are interested in, not something you think you should care about, but what you want to learn. You could even choose to learn a vocabulary word in another language!
Read the other articles in our S.P.I.C.E.S. series:
S: Personal Pursuits in Mothering Moments
P: Physical Goals Are Not Impossible
C–S: Coming Soon